The Lord of the Rings can still pack them into movie theaters, as in a bit of a surprise the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King extended edition on the big screen earned the No. 2 spot at the US box office on Thursday, April 13. That's against first night preview of brand new movies starring Nicolas Cage and Russell Crowe.
According to The Numbers, Return of the King grossed $1.17 million on April 13, which bested box office numbers of John Wick: Chapter 4 ($1.03 million) in its third week and Air ($982.597) in its second. But perhaps even more impressive, it performed better than two new movies that had early screenings on April 13 — the action/comedy Renfield starring Cage ($900,000) and the horror movie The Pope's Exorcist with Crowe ($850,000).
The only movie that performed better on April 13 was The Super Mario Bros. Movie, earning $9.8 million, helping it surpass the $500 million mark at the global box office.
Return of the King did this while playing in at least 1,000 less movie theaters than all of the movies mentioned above.
The Return of the King extended edition re-release is part of a 20th anniversary celebration for the Best Picture-winning movie. What is playing in theaters is version of movie that features an additional 50 minutes of footage not shown in the original cut and a special intro from star Elijah Wood, bringing the run time for the movie to four hours and 20 minutes, per Fathom Events.
Demand for the Return of the King re-release was so high that Fathom decided to extend the amount of days that the movie would play in theaters, with it now showing from April 13-19 in the US and through April 20 in Canada. That allows for an interesting question: could Return of the King land a top five weekend box office result 20 years after its original release?
You have to expect that the most die-hard fans went to see the movie the first night it was available (also perhaps under the initial belief that it was only going to be playing for two nights). Plus, Renfield and The Pope's Exorcist aren't the type of major franchises that usually draw massive Thursday crowds at movie theaters, but they could garner more attention over the weeknd when more people do head out to see a movie. But hey, anything is possible.
Though this re-release of Return of the King is a celebration of the original trilogy, the Lord of the Rings franchise is still very much active. Prime Video's Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 is on the way, while new Lord of the Rings movies are in the works.
